He gave me a sidelong glance out of his sinister red eyes, and laughed.
"Really, Master Copperfield," he said, "--I should say Mister, but I know you"ll excuse the abit I"ve got into--you"re so insinuating, that you draw me like a corkscrew! Well, I don"t mind telling you," putting his fish-like hand on mine, "I"m not a lady"s man in general, sir, and I never was, with Mrs. Strong."
His eyes looked green now, as they watched mine with a rascally cunning.
"What do you mean?" said I.
"Why, though I am a lawyer, Master Copperfield," he replied, with a dry grin, "I mean, just at present, what I say."
"And what do you mean by your look?" I retorted, quietly.
"By my look? Dear me, Copperfield, that"s sharp practice! What do I mean by my look?"
"Yes," said I. "By your look."
He seemed very much amused, and laughed as heartily as it was in his nature to laugh. After some sc.r.a.ping of his chin with his hand, he went on to say, with his eyes cast downward--still sc.r.a.ping, very slowly:
"When I was but an umble clerk, she always looked down upon me. She was for ever having my Agnes backwards and forwards at her ouse, and she was for ever being a friend to you, Master Copperfield; but I was too far beneath her, myself, to be noticed."
"Well?" said I; "suppose you were!"
"--And beneath him too," pursued Uriah, very distinctly, and in a meditative tone of voice, as he continued to sc.r.a.pe his chin.
"Don"t you know the Doctor better," said I, "than to suppose him conscious of your existence, when you were not before him?"
He directed his eyes at me in that sidelong glance again, and he made his face very lantern-jawed, for the greater convenience of sc.r.a.ping, as he answered:
"Oh dear, I am not referring to the Doctor! Oh no, poor man! I mean Mr.
Maldon!"
My heart quite died within me. All my old doubts and apprehensions on that subject, all the Doctor"s happiness and peace, all the mingled possibilities of innocence and compromise, that I could not unravel, I saw, in a moment, at the mercy of this fellow"s twisting.
"He never could come into the office, without ordering and shoving me about," said Uriah. "One of your fine gentlemen he was! I was very meek and umble--and I am. But I didn"t like that sort of thing--and I don"t!"
He left off sc.r.a.ping his chin, and sucked in his cheeks until they seemed to meet inside; keeping his sidelong glance upon me all the while.
"She is one of your lovely women, she is," he pursued, when he had slowly restored his face to its natural form; "and ready to be no friend to such as me, I know. She"s just the person as would put my Agnes up to higher sort of game. Now, I ain"t one of your lady"s men, Master Copperfield; but I"ve had eyes in my ed, a pretty long time back. We umble ones have got eyes, mostly speaking--and we look out of "em."
I endeavoured to appear unconscious and not disquieted, but, I saw in his face, with poor success.
"Now, I"m not a-going to let myself be run down, Copperfield," he continued, raising that part of his countenance, where his red eyebrows would have been if he had had any, with malignant triumph, "and I shall do what I can to put a stop to this friendship. I don"t approve of it.
I don"t mind acknowledging to you that I"ve got rather a grudging disposition, and want to keep off all intruders. I ain"t a-going, if I know it, to run the risk of being plotted against."
"You are always plotting, and delude yourself into the belief that everybody else is doing the like, I think," said I.
"Perhaps so, Master Copperfield," he replied. "But I"ve got a motive, as my fellow-partner used to say; and I go at it tooth and nail. I mustn"t be put upon, as a numble person, too much. I can"t allow people in my way. Really they must come out of the cart, Master Copperfield!"
"I don"t understand you," said I.
"Don"t you, though?" he returned, with one of his jerks. "I"m astonished at that, Master Copperfield, you being usually so quick! I"ll try to be plainer, another time.---Is that Mr. Maldon a-norseback, ringing at the gate, sir?"
"It looks like him," I replied, as carelessly as I could.
Uriah stopped short, put his hands between his great k.n.o.bs of knees, and doubled himself up with laughter. With perfectly silent laughter. Not a sound escaped from him. I was so repelled by his odious behaviour, particularly by this concluding instance, that I turned away without any ceremony; and left him doubled up in the middle of the garden, like a scarecrow in want of support.
It was not on that evening; but, as I well remember, on the next evening but one, which was a Sunday; that I took Agnes to see Dora. I had arranged the visit, beforehand, with Miss Lavinia; and Agnes was expected to tea.
I was in a flutter of pride and anxiety; pride in my dear little betrothed, and anxiety that Agnes should like her. All the way to Putney, Agnes being inside the stage-coach, and I outside, I pictured Dora to myself in every one of the pretty looks I knew so well; now making up my mind that I should like her to look exactly as she looked at such a time, and then doubting whether I should not prefer her looking as she looked at such another time; and almost worrying myself into a fever about it.
I was troubled by no doubt of her being very pretty, in any case; but it fell out that I had never seen her look so well. She was not in the drawing-room when I presented Agnes to her little aunts, but was shyly keeping out of the way. I knew where to look for her, now; and sure enough I found her stopping her ears again, behind the same dull old door.
At first she wouldn"t come at all; and then she pleaded for five minutes by my watch. When at length she put her arm through mine, to be taken to the drawing-room, her charming little face was flushed, and had never been so pretty. But, when we went into the room, and it turned pale, she was ten thousand times prettier yet.
Dora was afraid of Agnes. She had told me that she knew Agnes was "too clever". But when she saw her looking at once so cheerful and so earnest, and so thoughtful, and so good, she gave a faint little cry of pleased surprise, and just put her affectionate arms round Agnes"s neck, and laid her innocent cheek against her face.
I never was so happy. I never was so pleased as when I saw those two sit down together, side by side. As when I saw my little darling looking up so naturally to those cordial eyes. As when I saw the tender, beautiful regard which Agnes cast upon her.
Miss Lavinia and Miss Clarissa partook, in their way, of my joy. It was the pleasantest tea-table in the world. Miss Clarissa presided. I cut and handed the sweet seed-cake--the little sisters had a bird-like fondness for picking up seeds and pecking at sugar; Miss Lavinia looked on with benignant patronage, as if our happy love were all her work; and we were perfectly contented with ourselves and one another.
The gentle cheerfulness of Agnes went to all their hearts. Her quiet interest in everything that interested Dora; her manner of making acquaintance with Jip (who responded instantly); her pleasant way, when Dora was ashamed to come over to her usual seat by me; her modest grace and ease, eliciting a crowd of blushing little marks of confidence from Dora; seemed to make our circle quite complete.
"I am so glad," said Dora, after tea, "that you like me. I didn"t think you would; and I want, more than ever, to be liked, now Julia Mills is gone."
I have omitted to mention it, by the by. Miss Mills had sailed, and Dora and I had gone aboard a great East Indiaman at Gravesend to see her; and we had had preserved ginger, and guava, and other delicacies of that sort for lunch; and we had left Miss Mills weeping on a camp-stool on the quarter-deck, with a large new diary under her arm, in which the original reflections awakened by the contemplation of Ocean were to be recorded under lock and key.
Agnes said she was afraid I must have given her an unpromising character; but Dora corrected that directly.
"Oh no!" she said, shaking her curls at me; "it was all praise. He thinks so much of your opinion, that I was quite afraid of it."
"My good opinion cannot strengthen his attachment to some people whom he knows," said Agnes, with a smile; "it is not worth their having."
"But please let me have it," said Dora, in her coaxing way, "if you can!"
We made merry about Dora"s wanting to be liked, and Dora said I was a goose, and she didn"t like me at any rate, and the short evening flew away on gossamer-wings. The time was at hand when the coach was to call for us. I was standing alone before the fire, when Dora came stealing softly in, to give me that usual precious little kiss before I went.
"Don"t you think, if I had had her for a friend a long time ago, Doady,"
said Dora, her bright eyes shining very brightly, and her little right hand idly busying itself with one of the b.u.t.tons of my coat, "I might have been more clever perhaps?"
"My love!" said I, "what nonsense!"
"Do you think it is nonsense?" returned Dora, without looking at me.
"Are you sure it is?"
"Of course I am!" "I have forgotten," said Dora, still turning the b.u.t.ton round and round, "what relation Agnes is to you, you dear bad boy."
"No blood-relation," I replied; "but we were brought up together, like brother and sister."
"I wonder why you ever fell in love with me?" said Dora, beginning on another b.u.t.ton of my coat.